The AP Notices: Democrats May Be Making a Mistake

Democrats have responded to the tragic events in Charlottesville by obsessively picking apart President Trump’s multiple statements about those events, while steadfastly refusing to admit that the far-left antifas had anything to do with the violence they precipitated, and by demanding the removal of Confederate monuments. A casual consumer of the news might assume that Charlottesville has been a political triumph for Democrats, and a disaster for Trump and the GOP. But the Associated Press now realizes, with evident dismay, that the Democrats may have miscalculated: “Dems risk culture war fight in Charlottesville response.”

…Democratic leaders across multiple states now are pushing to take down Old South monuments like the one that ostensibly sparked the events in Charlottesville, and three rank-and-file House Democrats want to pursue a congressional censure of the president.

In interviews this week before his resignation was announced Friday, White House strategist Steve Bannon gleefully suggested Democrats are falling into a trap.

One of the problems is that the Democrats’ position on Confederate monuments is highly unpopular:

Polls taken after last weekend’s violence offer some evidence backing Bannon’s and Trump’s view. While polls found widespread disgust with white supremacists, a Marist Poll for NPR and PBS found that just 27 percent of adults queried believe Confederate monuments “should be removed because they are offensive.” About two out of three white and Latino respondents said they should remain, as did 44 percent of black respondents.

The AP’s fear is that Democrats’ obsession with President Trump will prevent them from communicating a positive agenda to voters:

Trump upset Democrat Hillary Clinton on the strength of his support from white voters, particularly working-class whites who possessed a combination of economic frustration and racial resentments salved by Trump’s promises of immigration controls, law-and-order and a booming economy.

Clinton, meanwhile, concentrated so much on Trump’s deficiencies and outlandish statements that her own policy proposals received less attention. That’s a problem that has beset Trump rivals since he first declared his candidacy: All the attention focused on Trump — even unflattering stories — prevent them from getting out their own messages.

Overlooked by the AP is the possibility that the Democrats have no messages of their own to communicate. Which reminds me–whatever happened to the Russia collusion story? It was of world-historical significance until it disappeared overnight, succeeded by a new opportunity for Trump-hatred.

Which doesn’t seem to be of much significance to voters. Rasmussen finds that the president’s approval rating hasn’t been significantly affected by the hysterical attacks on him following the violence in Charlottesville:

Despite the media furor over what the president did and did not say following last weekend’s incident in Virginia, his approval ratings appear little changed.

Over time, the Democrats’ perpetual hysteria will only make them look silly. The biggest thing they have going for them is the timidity of Congressional Republicans. If the Republicans stop reading the Washington Post and the New York Times and get on with the business of governing, the Democrats have no answers on the level of policy.